Lahore Resolution:

• In 1940, the Lahore Resolution of Mr. Jinnah was adopted.

• He was the most prominent leader of the ML.

• At first Jinnah was not in favour of a separate Muslim homeland and believed that Muslims might live comfortably in a federation of India with maximum provincial autonomy.

  • But the INC rule of 1937 – 1939 greatly changed his views about the future of Indian Muslims.

  • He presided over the historic session of ML on 22nd March 1940 in which Maulvi Fazal ul Haq presented a resolution demanding that “Regions in which the Muslims are numerically a majority, as in the NW and Eastern zone of India, should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constitutional units shall be autonomous and sovereign.”

• The resolution was unanimously passed on 23rd March, 1940.

  • This marked the start of active struggle for Pakistan that was achieved after only seven years.

  • A remarkable feature of Lahore Resolution is that it demanded for both NW and NE Muslim majority provinces whereas Iqbal and Ch Rehmat Ali had focused on NW provinces only.

  • It gave Muslims a visible goal for which they started their struggle under the leadership of Jinnah.

The Cripps Mission:

• In 1942, the Cripps Mission brought the idea of the “Union of India” comprising the British Indian provinces and the princely states.

  • In the proposed union, almost all ministers were to be Indians.

  • The plan allowed any province/provinces to opt out of the Union.

• However, Jinnah rejected the plan as he was not satisfied with the “opting out clause”.

  • The clause did not state the political status of the opting out provinces.

  • Therefore, Jinnah wanted a more clear and specific mention of Pakistan.

• Followed by the Cripps Mission Plan, Jinnah made an important achievement in the Gandhi-Jinnah talks of 1944.

  • Though the talks failed, Jinnah scored many points.

    • Gandhi had come to Jinnah to hold talks as he had recognized him as major leader.

    • The INC for the first time, negotiated with the ML on an equal footing.

    • Mr. Jinnah stood firm on his stance and did not accept any suggestion of the withdrawal of the demand for Pakistan.

    • Gandhi’s conditional acceptance of Pakistan was the main outcome of these talks.

    • Jinnah rejected Gandhi’s proposal of first launching a joint struggle for independence and later settling the issue of Pakistan.

The Quit India Resolution:

• In May 1942, Gandhi addressed an INC meeting in Allahabad and sharply criticised the lack of compliance shown by the British during the negotiations of the Cripps Mission Plan.

  • He urged the INC to start a non-violent protest against the British.

• On 8th August 1942, the Quit India Resolution was passed, calling for the immediate withdrawal of the British from India.

  • This led to widespread riots in several parts of India, and the British retaliated with full force.

The Gandhi Jinnah Talks:

• After Gandhi was released from jail, he wrote to Jinnah to hold talks with him about the future of India.

• Jinnah accepted it and invited Gandhi at his home in Bombay.

• Several rounds of talk hiss were held in June, 1944.

  • The talks showed Gandhi’s acknowledgement of Jinnah as a major leader.

  • He also suggested joint struggle of INC and ML after which the partition of India could be discussed. This shows his conditional acceptance of Pakistan.

• However, the talks had more failures than successes.

  • Gandhi insisted on being treated as an ordinary Indian but this irritated Jinnah’s legal mind as for him Gandhi was only an INC spokesman.

  • Gandhi also rejected the two nation theory by saying that a community couldn’t become a nation just by changing religion.

  • Majority of Indian Muslims were local converts from Hinduism or Sikhism.

  • Jinnah asked for keeping the defence and foreign affairs under the provincial governments in case of a united India.

  • So the talks ended in a deadlock.

The Simla Conference:

• By June 1945, the WWII was nearing end and British were now determined to leave India.

• Viceroy Lord Wavell, after consulting with the British government, drafted the Wavell Plan.

• The plan was discussed in the Simla Conference in June-July 1945.

• The ML delegation included Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan and Abul Kalam Azad, the INC President.

• Lord Wavell unfolded the plan of an interim Executive Council (government) comprising equal number of Hindu and Muslim ministers.

• All parties agreed on the idea of the Executive Council, and the independence of India.

• However, Gandhi insisted on nominating Hindus as well as some Muslim ministers.

  • Inclusion of Azad was aimed at conveying the message that INC too represented Muslims.

  • Jinnah replied that ML alone was a party of all Muslims as it had been winning almost all by elections for the Muslim seats during the last 3 years.

  • Jinnah also objected to equal number of Hindu and Muslim ministers by pointing towards other non-Muslim minorities. If those minorities allied themselves with INC, Muslims would remain a minority.

  • The session ended without any success and Wavell admitted failure of the conference on 14th July, 1945.

The 1945-46 Elections

• The Labour Party won a massive and unexpected victory in the 1945 General Election.

• It won 393 seats against the Conservative Party that won only 197 seats.

• The party was opposed to imperialism and eager to promote independence for India following the election.

• Thus the signs for an independent state of some kind looked very positive.

• However, there was a problem, since the new government was pro- Congress and Gandhi, so partition was most unlikely and instead the favoured route was for a federal India rather than two separate states

The Cabinet Mission Plan:

• In March 1946, members of the British Cabinet Mission arrived in India to work out a plan for achieving independence for India as a federation.

  • The Mission met with some 470 Indian leaders but Jinnah stuck firm to his stance that partition was the only way forward as far as the Muslims were concerned.

• Once the plans for groupings the provinces were known, the ML accepted the plan as long as the groupings were to be compulsory.

  • Congress however refused to accept the groupings and that they would not be bound by any British plan.

• The British government decided to form an Interim Government headed by Nehru of Congress.

  • Eventually members of the ML joined it too.

Direct Action Day:

• The ML got worried that the British would leave India without organizing a settlement and didn’t want Congress to be left in charge of organizing a new country.

  • Thus the ML organised a Direct Action Day in the summer of 1946 in an attempt to stop the British government giving in to Congress.

  • Rioting on a massive scale took place and thousands died.

• The British got increasingly worried that civil war would ensue and gradually a change of mind grew over partition.

  • In February 1947 came the announcement by Attlee that the British would leave the sub-continent by 1948 and the subsequent violence in the Punjab in March 1947 that convinced Nehru that partition should take place quickly.

    • This was formalized in the 3rd June Plan of 1947 in which Mountbatten, the new Viceroy brought about partition in August 1947.

The Radcliffe Award:

• Mountbatten appointed a Boundary Commission under Sir Cyril Radcliffe to draw the boundary line between India and Pakistan.

• Radcliffe had four assistants, two nominated by the ML and two by the INC.

• The Radcliffe Award was announced on 16th August 1947.

• The ML was disappointed as Calcutta in Bengal and the Muslim majority districts of Frozepur and Gurdaspur in Punjab were given to India.

  • Gurdaspur provided a land route to India to have access to Kashmir.

• Jinnah unwillingly accepted the Award.

The Independence Act:

• It was passed on 15th August 1947 and stated that from that day India would be partitioned into two Dominion states: India and Pakistan.

  • Each state would be totally free to make any laws it wished.

  • The 1935 Act would serve as the interim constitution till both the states had framed their own constitutions.

• Pakistan adopted 14th August and India 15th August as the Independence Day.